This Middle Eastern Fish Casserole marked the beginning of his 'mission'...
hmm... looks like I have to keep on buying cookbooks and spend hours blog hopping. Nevermind that I've been labelled as Cookbook Addict, Blogoholic Mom, and the new title to add to the list ~ 'Prop' Monster.

I have a perfect solution ~ save money, space and time in order to fulfill H's mission ... get me a laptop (preferably the ones with the bitten Apple logo on the cover ... hint...hint)... I can browse, trying out new recipes, following its instruction in the comfort of my kitchen... saves $$$ as I dont have to buy cookbooks, saves me from running to and fro from study to kitchen, save us the 'filing' headache plus storage too...furthermore, we should be environmentally friendly ~ save a lot of trees by not printing recipes on papers...Right?
Isn't this a brilliant idea?

This is my second attempt cooking Middle Eastern Fish Casserole. I used Barramundi fillets in my first attempt. The fish didn't hold its shape, flesh became soft and fell apart... plusI wasn't too excited with the photos I took....
So I use my all time favourite ~ Hiramasa fillets instead of Barramundi... and it tasted much better as Hiramasa soaked in the flavours of spices and fresh herbs .. Excellent.
If I were to describe the taste... I would say it is quite similar to curry with subtle bitterness with every bite, I loved the taste despite the bitterness note: I dislike anything bitter!!!...bitter taste came from the pierced lime, perhaps next time I'll choose the smallest lime I could find..

1 down... many thousands recipes to go, oh well...

Recipe(adapted from Just Add Spice from Lyndey Milan and Ian Hemphil)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 brown onion - chopped

2 cloves of garlic - chopped

2 tablespoon dill (in the tube)

1 bunch of coriander - chopped

2 large tomatoes - chopped

1/4 cup tomato paste

1 lime - pierced few times with sharp knife

1 1/2 cups of water

4 Hiramasa fillets cut into 3cm thick

2 tablespoon flour

Middle Eastern spice

1 teaspoon cardamom pods

2 teaspoon cumin

2 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoon ground tumeric

1 teaspoon salt

Ground all the Middle Eastern spices.

Heat 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan and saute the onion until transparent. Add garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, dill, coriander and lime with 2 teaspoon of the Middle Eastern Spice. Give it a good stir. Add 1 1/2 cups of water. Cover the saucepan, bring to boil then lower the heat to a simmer for 15 minutes.

Prepare the fish while the sauce is simmering...

Pat dry the fish. Rub the remaining of the spice onto the fish, and dust with plain flour. Heat up the frying pan with the remaining of the olive oil, cook the fish cutlets lightly on both sides... to seal.

Transfer the fish to the simmering sauce.

Season to taste and simmer for another 10 minutes until the fish is cooked.

haha lisa! your emoticons and subscripts make your blog so entertaining to read as i can imagine your expression as you're typing it LOL! i hope you get that "special present". looking forward to many more recipes from your "mission" haha

I love that motto of 1000 foods to try before you die.. (I do have the one with the 1000 places to see before you die..)But on the buying an apple (the one with the bitten logo thingie) and then not buying anymore cookbooks... sorry, that just doesn't work.. See I have one of those laptops AND a HUGE stack of cookbooks that gets added to daily....lolLove your fishdish!

This fish's name is so similar to my maiden name (Hirasawa). LOL. What a delicious looking meal. I like your solution Lisa! ;-) I wonder if I can come up with 1000 or is it hard? That's a good question. I've never thought of making the list. At 12:30am, I'm very hungry looking at your beautiful photo... I see I missed another post. Going to check now.